


Hair of the dog

by statuscrows



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Ableist Language, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Dark Comedy, Episode: s03e08 Morty's Mind Blowers, Gaslighting, Incest, M/M, Memory Alteration, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statuscrows/pseuds/statuscrows
Summary: Morty accidentally discovers a hidden stash of Mind Blowers.
Relationships: Rick Sanchez/Morty Smith
Comments: 27
Kudos: 278





	Hair of the dog

"Morty, your shoe is on fire," Summer says from the couch, not bothering to look up from her cellphone. Morty lowers the slice of bread he's been spreading jelly on and lifts up his left foot, staring down at it critically.

"What are you talking about? My shoe's fine," Morty says. He goes back to his PB&J.

"Other shoe, dummy."

He turns around and sure enough there are bright blue flames creeping up his pant leg. Morty screams and runs over to the sink. "Oh my god, Summer, what the hell?! You-you couldn't—like, a little more urgency next time?!"

"It didn't seem that serious," Summer says. Morty shoves his foot into the sink and flips the faucet on full blast until the blue flames start to recede. It doesn't really hurt and he doesn't feel anything underneath his burnt pants, but it's definitely unnerving.

"How long was I on fire?!"

"I dunno, Morty, I don't keep track of when you are or aren't on fire."

"But me and Rick didn't do anything that dangerous today! How did this even happen?"

"Obviously you must've done something weird, otherwise you wouldn't be on fire."

"We didn't! We were just at Blips and Chitz all day."

"Huh." Summer lies back down on the armchair, disinterest growing. "Probably had another one of those mindfuck days that Rick had to erase. Sink's overflowing, by the way."

"Oh jeez." Morty nearly stumbles trying to get his leg out of the sink and turn off the faucet at the same time. He squeezes some of the water out of his pants, tosses a dish towel over the wet spot on the floor, and runs over to Summer. "Wait, what do you mean erase?"

Summer rolls her eyes. "Sometimes you go through some real fucked up stuff when you're adventuring with Rick and Rick doesn't believe in therapy or dealing with the consequences of his actions so he just wipes stuff from your brain so you don't whine and have nightmares all the time."

"What?!"

"Yeah, it's some real Men in Black shit. He keeps all the memories down in his lab so he can show them to you later for anthology purposes." She shrugs. "It usually doesn't go well."

He doesn't remember doing anything that would cause him to be on fire, in fact he doesn't remember anything but their trip to Blips and Chitz. It wasn't like there was a hole in his memory either. Everything felt seamless in his brain. He doesn’t have any memories of blacking out or have any places in his memories that seemed unusually disjointed, which made the fact that he apparently got his mind wiped regularly all the more strange.

"I wanna see these memories, Summer,” Morty says firmly. “Show me where he keeps them."

"Time for another 'Morty's Mind Blowers', huh?" She climbs out of her seat. "Alright, follow me."

Summer leads him down to Rick's underground lab and then to a room that he doesn't recognize. It's full of red and blue glass vials and there's a chair in the center of it with a helmet lying on the seat.

"Here you go, here are all your dumb memories that you probably don't want." She grabs a random red vial and holds out the helmet. "Put this bad boy on and stick one of these things in the front. You'll remember whatever the hell is in there."

Morty puts on the helmet uneasily. "Should we be doing this without Rick?"

"Eh, who cares? He's off in his secret poop spot. Do you really wanna wait for him to come back?"

"I don't know, maybe Rick removed these memories for a good reason." Morty starts to take off the helmet. "Ma-maybe I should just ask—"

Summer slams the helmet back down onto his head. "Morty, if you pussy out now the plot won't progress. Just look at the stupid thing."

"Wait, hold on—"

Summer jams the vial into the front of the helmet.

***

"What've you got to bet?" The unfamiliar alien asks. It's got a glowing grey beard and is sitting on the other side of a table covered with cards that vaguely resemble poker. Morty is standing beside Rick in the seedy looking underground bar, watching his grandfather examine a handful of cards.

"Here," Rick says, throwing some kind of currency onto the table. "300 Darseks."

"Oh no, we don't trade in money here." There's a chorus of ominous chuckling from the other aliens around the table. "We deal in things that are a little more...personal."

Rick rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I've been to one of these before. You fucks always think you're—that you're the first people to take the pound of flesh concept literally. I'll bet a pinky"

A tiny alien, barely big enough to support the cards she's holding, raises a hand. "I bet my right arm!"

"Ooooo, real big fucking showoff," Rick says. "I'll bet the strongest liver in the universe."

"Uh, Rick?" Morty says.

"Shh, I got this, okay?" Rick says dismissively.

A large green alien with a cluster of spider-like eyes says, "Three of my lungs."

"Weak!" Rick says. "We all know you've got two more."

"Fine, then I bet four of my lungs!"

Rick blows a very loud raspberry. "Wow, really putting it all out there." He downs a shot of some alien liquor and points his thumb back at Morty. "I bet my grandson."

Morty blinks. "Wait, what?"

The dealer makes a sound like a whistle. "Too rich for my blood."

"Um, Rick?!"

"Shh, Morty. I said I got this, remember? My hand is fucking great."

"You can't just bet me!"

Rick gives him a lazy pat on the shoulder. "Sure I can. Don't worry, Morty. I'll totally win this thing."

***

The memory ends there and Morty finds himself back in Rick's lab. He yanks the glass vial out of the helmet with a sigh. "God, I should really be more surprised."

"Whatever you're missing from today is probably down here somewhere," Summer says, turning to leave. "You have fun with that. I've sat through enough Mind Blowers."

"Why are all the vials different colors?" Morty asks.

She shrugs. "Grandpa Rick says color-coordinating is for fifty year old divorcees who are trying to reinvent themselves at community college so maybe it means nothing."

Once Summer is upstairs he picks up a random blue vial and finds a memory of eating a strange alien fruit and vomiting blood for several days straight. He can understand why he'd want to forget that one.

Despite what Summer said the red vials seem to contain memories of Rick being an asshole while the blue ones contain stuff that Morty wishes he couldn't remember. There's no clear organization for the memories with ones closer to the front sometimes containing memories a few years old and ones in back sometimes having memories that seemed pretty recent.

After watching a memory of Rick tripping into a puddle, which Rick apparently thought was appropriate to erase, he decides he probably won't be able to find the reason he was on fire earlier without Rick's help. He returns the vial to its spot with an annoyed noise and kicks the wall in frustration.

Distantly he hears a mechanical click and a square panel along the wall sinks further in. Morty bends down, examining the hidden hatch with a frown. He presses down on one side of the hatch and the panel swings open.

He doesn't think the compartment is deep but he's wary of sticking his hand into a dark hidey-hole in Rick's lab so he turns the flashlight on his phone into the compartment. There's no dust but there is a warn cardboard box. Morty pulls it forwards and finds that it isn't taped up or anything.

Inside of it are dozens of vials, all of them red.

Morty picks one at random, examining the label on the side. He guesses that Rick was drunker than usual when he wrote it because his handwriting is nearly illegible. He thinks it says something along the lines of "Real Subtle, Dipshit".

Morty walks back over to the chair and sits down with no small amount of trepidation.

***

Rick is sitting across from him in front of the T.V, a bottle of beer in one hand and Morty's hand grasped in the other. They're arm-wrestling and Morty has gotten himself worked up and sweaty from trying to move Rick's hand in the slightest.

"Wow, you're weak as shit, Morty," Rick says, not bothering to put his drink down. "Ha! Is that the best you can do?”

"No," Morty says, pulling with his left hand as well. Rick doesn't budge. "You're cheating aren't you? Y-y-you built some kind of machine or potion that made you super strong."

"I definitely didn't need to build a machine to beat my scrawny bitch of a grandson at arm-wrestling." Rick's wearing a smile and his eyes are half lidded. He's drunk as hell but he's at least in a good mood, more "make fun of Morty" drunk, than "start setting booby-traps" drunk, which is preferable. "Tell you what: you probably can't beat me but if you can get my arm even a little bit towards my side I'll let you pick the next five adventures."

Morty's face lights up. "The next ten!"

"The next four."

"The next seven?"

"The next three."

"Okay, okay, jeez, the next three."

Rick doesn't bother objecting as Morty sits up on his knees, shoving his weight against his arm with both hands. He doesn't try to win the game either, only exerting enough force to keep Morty from moving him.

"You're definitely cheating," Morty grunts.

"Nope, I'm using regular human amounts of strength." He finishes his beer, eyes never leaving Morty. He snorts. "Shit," he says, lowering his voice. "Be so fucking easy."

Morty, who is on his feet now as he tries to get Rick's hand to move even slightly, asks, "What'd be easy?"

Rick stares at him blandly for a long moment and then pulls his hand out of Morty's. With nothing to brace himself against Morty falls over, rolling off the coffee table and onto the carpet.

"Hey, what the heck?!" Morty asks, picking himself off the floor.

"Your hands are all covered in pubescent boy sweat. It's gross," Rick says. He sits back down on the couch and turns the T.V. on. "But for the record, I won."

***

The memory ends there and Morty frowns, strangely uncomfortable but unsure of why the memory was worthy of being erased. Sure Rick was kind of being an asshole but he was regularly an asshole. He goes back to the box and picks another labelled "Forgone Conclusion".

***

He's watching a movie with his parents and Summer; or rather his dad is watching a movie, his mom is playing a one woman game of Slap Bag, Summer is on her phone, and he's rubbing Snuffles’ stomach. But they're all in the same room with the T.V. on when they hear the garage door open and the familiar sound of RIck's ship crashing hard enough to shake the whole house. Snuffles lifts his head but otherwise hardly reacts to the noise.

"Sounds like he's been drinking," Beth slurs. "What am I saying, that's redundant." She turns the stopper on her bag and continues drinking.

Morty listens as Rick's ship opens and a cascade of bottles hits the garage floor. Something crashes and then there's a loud bag.

Jerry sighs. "For fuck’s sake."

"Not it," Summer says, placing her finger on her nose.

"Huh?" Morty says, looking up. Beth and Jerry already have their fingers on their noses. "What, hey!"

"Looks like it's your turn to check on him," Summer says.

"That's not fair! It's always my turn to check on him!"

"Well, son, you're the worst at Nose Goes," Jerry says. And then with the air of someone saying something deeply profound, "That's just how the nose goes."

"Yeah, okay, I'm going," he says, just as Beth mumbles, "god, what the fuck are you even talking about?"

Rick is pretty much exactly where Morty expects to find him: unconscious and halfway under his desk with a collection of empty bottles scattered around him. His ship is parked completely sideways, driver's side down. Morty's a little impressed he was able to make his way out before it tipped over. He gives the ship an experimental shove and, when it doesn't immediately tip over, decides that it'll probably be fine.

After making sure nothing in the room is beeping or leaking anything toxic, Morty grabs one of his grandfather's feet and drags him out from under his desk.

He considers leaving right after that but Rick has a beer bottle jammed under his neck which is probably making him extremely uncomfortable. Carefully, he goes down to his knees beside Rick and grabs the neck of the bottle, starting to gently slide it out from under him.

Before he's pulled it the last couple inches Rick's eyes open and he slaps his hands onto Morty's face with a shout of, " _Morty_!"

Morty screams.

"Morty, it's pointless, Morty! It's all pointless! Stop screaming already, fuck! Listen, Morty, there's no point in agonizing over your decisions, Morty. Do you hear me, Morty?!" He starts shaking Morty's shoulders. "There's no fucking point!"

"Okay! Okay! Oh my god!" Morty yelps. Rick starts nodding and pulls himself unsteadily upright.

"That's right. No matter what you decide to do there's a universe out there where you didn't do it and a universe where you did and also a version of yourself that wasn't such a pussy about it and doesn't bother feeling guilty. Do you hear me, Morty? Do you understand me?!"

"I know! Everything's pointless, everything's always pointless!"

"No, that's not what I'm saying!" He grabs Morty's head, cradling his skull in his hands with a level of strength that makes Morty feel like a grape being stepped on. "Except also yes, because everything is pointless. But this is a good pointlessness. This is a _freeing_ kind of pointless, Morty. Look-look at this shit. Morty, check this shit out."

He yanks Morty forward, not giving him a chance to move out of the way or resist as suddenly he's being kissed. Morty makes a noise of protest and shoves at Rick's chest until the kiss breaks and Rick starts laughing.

"Ew, Rick, what the hell?"

"Exactly!" he yells triumphantly. "There's a universe out there where I didn't kiss you and universes where I did so it just doesn't fucking matter!"

Morty starts to get up, ready to leave Rick to pass out and sober up on his own but Rick takes hold of his arms, clearly nowhere near done.

"Do you get it now, Morty? Do you get it?"

"Yes, Rick," he says wearily. "You can do whatever you want. But please don't kiss me again, it's not funny."

"I know it isn't, buddy," Rick says. "And for what it's worth, there's probably some universe where a Rick meant that kiss only as a joke or to prove his point. But i-i-it's not this universe and I'm not that Rick."

"What are you talking—" Morty starts to say but he's cut off by the two hands on his biceps drawing him in closer, by the overwhelming smell of liquor on his grandfather's breath, way too close to his mouth, closer than when he was on his usual maniacal rant, too close to excuse as being anything innocent, anything but a prelude to—

"You see," Rick says, over his growing panic. He sways suddenly to the side, taking Morty with him as he goes down to his right elbow. "Don't you love it? Isn't it—isn’t it fucking terrible to think about?"

"Rick?" he asks. Unsure what he's asking for beyond some assurance that he's misinterpreting this moment between.

"It's okay, Morty. Don't worry about it. At least in this universe your Rick isn't gonna do anything. Not that it fucking matters."

"What do you mean 'anything'"?

Rick burps. "It's not because I have whisky dick or anything. I don't get whiskey dick. I'm Rick fucking Sanchez, my dick works fine, do you hear?!"

"I-I-I don't know what you're talking about!"

"I said don't-don't worry about it, Morty." He lunges forward and kisses Morty again, this time not the quick chaste thing that could almost be mistaken for okay, but wet and open-mouthed so he can taste beer and wine and whatever the hell else he's been drinking. Morty is frozen in place, too confused and too frightened to do much of anything.

But eventually Rick ends the kiss. A wet string of saliva spread between their mouths which Rick breaks with a swipe of his tongue. Morty's trying to remember how speech works when he spots a strange device in Rick's hand. Rick points it at his head.

"Alright, Morty. Hold still. This seems like a problem for Sober Rick!" He snickers. "Honestly, fuck that guy."

***

Morty blinks and is back in Rick's lab, sitting in the chair. His head is swimming, the shock and confusion of earlier still fresh in his mind, but without their cause in the room. He yanks the vial out of the helmet, a cold sweat breaking out over his skin. That hadn't been a joke. Rick had explicitly said he wasn't joking about it, but the only reason he could think of for why Rick would want to kiss him was that he was a bastard and truly didn't give a damn whether he did or didn't do weird fucked up things.

He goes back to the box and picks up another vial at random. It takes some squinting but he thinks the next vial says "Baby's First" something. He doesn’t bother sitting back down this time, just popping the vial in right there.

***

He's woken from a deep sleep by the sound of someone, presumably Rick, slamming open the door to his room. He'd asked his mom earlier in the day if he could have a lock for his room just for this and she'd laughed, saying that it probably wouldn't keep Rick out, no matter how drunk he was. From Rick's swaying he's clearly drunk as hell.

"H-hey, Morty," Rick says, sloppily pushing the door closed. He doesn't bother with the lights as he stumbles over to Morty's bed. "Whatcha up to?"

"Sleeping, Rick," Morty says, pointedly rubbing at his eyes as he sits up. "Because of someone I haven't slept through the night in weeks!"

"Shh, shh, come on, Morty, you gotta—you gotta keep your voice down. You don't wanna wake up your mom okay, we—" he snorts. "I'm just fucking with you. I soundproofed the room years ago. I'm not a—not a—you know, a Morty."

"What? What the hell do you mean you soundproofed my room?"

"Yeah. I'm not trying to-to wake up your parents and sister. There's a noise cancelling force field around your room."

"But why would you—"

"Let's be real," Rick says, voice going flat, "I know what I'm about. I-I-I knew this was gonna happen eventually."

They stare at each other in silence for a long moment. Morty pulls his knees up towards his chest uncomfortably and Rick's eyes linger on where his legs slip free from his blanket. "What was gonna happen?"

"Oh, Morty. Morty, Morty, Morty." He puts a swaying hand on Morty's head. "You are so fucking stupid, buddy. So fucking stupid."

"I'm not that stupid," Morty says, a little offended.

"You're so fucking stupid and grandpa loves you." Rick's drunken smile grows. "Gimme—gimme your hand."

"Huh, what are you doing?" Despite asking Rick just grabs his hand and pulls it forward. "Hey."

"So fucking stupid," Rick mumbles fondly. He pulls Morty's hand towards his lap and then presses it against his crotch.

Morty stares at his hand with discomfort, ready to yell and pull away but after a moment his mouth falls open, feeling the hard shape under it. "Holy shit! Rick, what the hell is that?!"

"I'm pretty sure you know what a boner is."

"Of course I know what it is!" He tries to jerk away to no avail. "Why are you making me touch it?!"

"If you don't want me call-calling you dumb you really gotta stop playing the part so well. Why don't you think real long and real, uh haha, _hard_ , about why someone would want another person's hand on their dick. See if you can Sherlock Holmes your way to the—to a reasonable excuse."

"But—"

"It's cool, Morty. Just take your time thinking through it. And in the meantime..." He trails off as he squeezes Morty's hand around him. Morty feels him twitch through his pants "Ah, _fuck_."

"What the fuck, are you—are you seriously doing this?"

"Hell yeah I am. Now do your grandpa a favor and unzip these. The pants situation here is getting desperate."

"No!"

"What-whatever you say, Morty. That's cool," Rick says immediately, letting go of Morty's hand. Morty has about half a second of relief before Rick sits up and crawls over to grab at his pajama shorts. "I'll jerk you off then."

"What, no! You can't just—“ Morty gasps as one of Rick's hands slides into his boxers and touches his cock.

"Don't pretend you're such a prude now, Morty," Rick says. He shifts forward so he can wrap his hand around Morty's shaft. "Jerking off and being my grandson are like 90% of your personality."

"Ahh, nnnn no, that-tha-that's not..." he tries to say. Rick's hand on him is making it hard to form complete sentences.

"Yeah, it is." He stops stroking Morty long enough to tug his shorts down and then he settles between his spread knees. "It's those teenage hormones of yours. Look at you, already got a little chub going." He laughs. "Knew your dick was your weak spot."

Morty shudders, eyes falling shut. He and Rick have been on an adventure for the last few days and he hasn't had a chance to jerk off but mostly he's just unprepared for how it feels to have a hand that isn't his own on his dick. Especially when that hand belongs to someone who really knows what they're doing and is stroking him off with so much obvious gusto.

"Why are you—why are you doing this?" Morty asks.

"Cause it turns me on to watch my cute, stupid, grandson squirm around like a bug under a magnifying glass just because I put my hand on his little, baby dick."

Morty feels himself flush at the combination of insults and unusual compliments from Rick. The concept of Rick being turned on by him is hard for him to wrap his head around.

"What, you don't think you turn me on? Look at this, look at me, Morty."

Morty opens one eye slowly and sees Rick unzipping his pants with his free hand. He pulls himself free from his pants and strokes himself alongside Morty. He's very hard: his cock leaking pre-come from the tip.

"That's what you do to me, Morty," he says. "That's all you."

Morty turns his head away and shuts his eyes again. He hears Rick laugh.

"What're you so scared of? You-you don't wanna check out your grandpa's dick?"

"Why would I?!"

Rick grunts and goes back to jacking him off. He pauses for just a second and spits on Morty's cock and Morty jumps, face going redder as Rick rubs the wetness along his length.

"That better?"

Morty shakes his head. It _does_ feel better than just Rick's dry hand though, and Morty's never had very high tolerance, but he'll die before he admits that. Even though he jerks off frequently, even though he's apparently gross enough to get hard for his grandfather, he's never lasted long.

"Mom—my mom is gonna kill you," he says quietly. His cock is leaking heavily in Rick's hand.

"Holy shit, you gonna come already, Morty?" Rick asks, ignoring the comment. Morty whines in embarrassment, raising his hands to cover his face. "That's cute as shit. Fuck, you're so young."

"Rick. St-stop it already."

"Don't bitch, you're almost there," Rick says, leaning over him. He can feel Rick's eyes on him. "I know you wanna come, Morty. When's the last time you got off? I bet you're fucking desperate for it, aren't you? Your dick doesn't give-give a fuck if I'm your grandpa, you little perv. Look at how fucking wet you are."

Morty cries out as he comes, legs closing around where Rick is kneeling between them. He stays like that for a while, trembling and covering his face as he tries to catch his breath.

"Huh," Rick says, his voice smug. "Who knew you had a thing for dirty talk?"

Morty moves his hands away from his face and sniffs, glaring at Rick. He knows his eyes are red and there are tears running down his cheeks.

Rick groans. "Shit, Morty. Don't look at me like that. C-come on, stop crying."

He reaches for Morty's face like he means to wipe away his tears but Morty slaps his hand away and starts to cry even harder. Rick lowers his hands and doesn't try to touch him again.

"Okay, yeah, that's fair." He sits back, blinking blurrily; his cock is still hanging out of his pants though it's rapidly going soft. "I'm...look I'm sorry, Morty. Stop crying, okay? I promise I won't do it again."

Morty hears his words but can't get the tears to stop once they've begun. He's not sure he believes them. After a minute of silently watching him crying, Rick pulls something out of his lab coat.

"Nice going, Sanchez," Rick mumbles, pointing the memory eraser at Morty's head.

  
.  
***

_Holy shit_ , Morty thinks, staring at the vial again. Now that he's watched the memory he knows the label says "Baby's First HJ".

There were probably a couple dozen vials in the box. They couldn't all be—Rick couldn't have been doing things like that in all of them. Sure, he was frequently that exact level of drunk around Morty, and he'd always been a possessive, immoral, lunatic but half the time it seemed like he didn't even _like_ Morty, much less want to molest him.

He turns over some of the vials, unsure what he's looking for exactly. One of them just says "Gross" and Morty picks it up, wondering how bad the memory has to be for Rick himself to find it disgusting.

***

They're sitting in Rick's spaceship, headed back to Earth after a particularly long and shitty adventure. Morty is the one driving while Rick sits in the passenger's seat, reclining his chair back as far as it'll go. He's chugging a bottle of wine and one of his arms is thrown back across the top of his seat.

"Shit's, you know—" Rick burps. "Shit's fucking terrible. It's totally arbitrary."

"Uh-huh," Morty says blandly. He's more focused on his driving then whatever Rick is trying to say.

"No, no, not in the usual wuh-way, Morty. Fuck." He tosses his now empty wine bottle over his shoulder where it smashes on top of the pile of bottles already resting in the back seat. He pats down his lab coat with a grunt. "Morty, where'd you put my flask?"

Morty rolls his eyes. "Why would I put your flask anywhere?"

"If you wanted a hit—a hit of your grandpa's Pannangian brandy you coulda—you just gotta ask."

"I don't want a hit of your weird alien liquor, Rick. A-and you're sitting on your flask."

"That's probably for the—probably for the best it's a mild hallucinogen for me so you'd probably fucking, I don't know, die if you tried it." He digs his flask out from under his ass. "You'd be seeing other dimensions in shit."

"I don't think I wanna start getting drunk or high anytime soon."

"No, not with my genes you don't." He sips at his flask and then sighs loudly. "I-I-I'm sorry, Morty, everything's all fucked."

Morty has to veer hard to the left to avoid crashing into a rogue asteroid. "Holy shit, Rick. Did you just apologize to me?"

"Mmm." Rick shuts his eyes. "I fucked—I fucked up the other day. Everything's shit, but you matter sometimes, Morty. Of course you matter because I make you matter but that's the only reason anything matters in the first place. If we're being real here you've got as much presence a-a-as a sexy lamp half the time, but I still put up some arbitrary line years ago that said 'oh this particular Morty is more important than every other Morty in the multiverse just 'cause he was born in my shithole dimension'. Do you know there are dimensions where Al Gore became president, Morty?" He asks suddenly, voice losing that thoughtful quality as he opens his eyes. "God, those fuckers are really living it up. Just a whooooole bunch of dominos that never got knocked over."

"I really don't know what you're talking about.”

"You know, the In-the Inconvenient Truth guy, the hanging chad debacle. You wanna know, you wanna guess what planet Dick Cheney's from?"

"No, Rick, what are you apologizing for?!"

"Oh, yeah. Making you suck me off the other day." He slumps back in his seat. "My b."

"Suck you—" Morty hits the breaks and Rick jerks forward, having not buckled his seatbelt. He settles back into his seat comfortably like he didn’t say anything at all. "What did you just say?"

"So stupid to feel bad about it," Rick mumbles. His head slides against the window of the ship as he starts to drift. " _You_ don't even feel bad about it. Rules are for not-Ricks. Already made up my mind to do it... why would I need to apologize to my Morty in the first..."

Rick's mumbling trails off into snoring and Morty is left staring at his sleeping grandfather in disbelief. With an indignant huff, Morty unbuckles his seatbelt and starts shaking Rick's shoulder.

Rick snorts as he comes awake, blinking sleepily at Morty. "Oh, that's right. Thanks for the wakeup call, Morty." He pulls a machine out of his lab coat and points it at Morty's head.

***

Morty glares at the vial, more than a little pissed at the thought of Rick not just covering his tracks but hating that he feels regret over it. He grabs another vial. This one says "The Seed Incident: Take 2".

***

"I-I really don't think it'll get up there," Morty whines from inside the bathroom stall. He's got his pants around his ankles and one massive alien seed in his hand that he's been ineffectually trying to push into himself for the past ten minutes.

He hears Rick belch and then take a long drink from his flask. He's leaning against the outside of the stall, sounding far calmer than Morty is. "Did you lube up?"

"Yes, god, Rick, I lubed up."

"You gotta reeeeeally lube it up, Morty. Drench that hole."

"The hole is freakin’ drenched, Rick! It's not going in!" Morty snaps. "The ones you got this time are just way too big! Isn't there another way we can get home? Some way that doesn't involve alien customs?"

Rick sighs. "Alright, open up. I'll do it."

Morty scrambles to pull his pants back up, relief flooding his veins. But as soon as he opens the door, Rick slides in and bends him over, pressing his face to the wall of the stall. "Um, Rick?!"

"We've already discussed this. I can't hold stuff up my ass, you've got plenty of room to stretch." He starts pulling Morty's pants and underwear down but Morty grabs at them both, trying to pull them back up. Rick makes an annoyed noise and grabs both of his hands, tugging them off his pants and pressing them to the wall. "Don't make this more difficult than it has to be."

"I thought you were gonna do it!"

"I know what you _thought_ , Morty, that's why I'm the brains of this operation and you're my loveable sidekick/audience self-insert. Now stay still and relax."

Morty does nothing of the sort, going rigid as Rick lowers his pants again. He nudges Morty with his knee, trying to get him to spread his thighs wider. Morty doesn't move and Rick just reaches down, placing his hands on Morty's upper thighs and tugging.

"Morty, stop being stubborn and spread your legs."

Morty shakes his head, eyes squeezed shut.

"Listen, Morty, you gotta trust me here. I've been—I've been shoving things up my ass for half a century, I know what I'm doing."

"But—"

"You trust me, don't you?"

"Um," Morty says, genuinely trying to think of his answer. "Kinda?"

"Really?" Rick asks, shock and pleasure filling his voice. "Holy shit, why? No, no, leave your pants down, dumbass. I'm kidding. Why wouldn't you trust me? Now spread your legs, I'm gonna try and get a finger up your ass."

Morty squeaks unintelligibly at the feeling of a finger prodding at his entrance but he makes himself step his feet apart so there's enough space for Rick to work.

"That's not a drenched hole. You hardly used any lube, Morty! You've gotta slick things up back here." Rick lets him go and Morty stays right where he is, bent over, ass out and bared for Rick. He tries to imagine he's at a doctor's office and not in an alien bathroom with his grandfather but it's hard when he can smell the liquor on the man touching him. And when their goal was to shove alien contraband up him.

"Rick, I really don't wanna do this."

There's a squelch as Rick starts to squeeze the tube of lube and he callously grabs one of Morty's cheeks and spreads it wide. Morty yelps at the cold sensation dripping down his crease.

"Oh, come on, Rick," Morty says, voice wavering. "Are you really gonna put that in me?"

"Yes, now shut up," Rick snaps. He sounds impatient, which he often is with Morty, but also distracted.

With that he reaches down, dragging two fingers through the slick lube and then rubbing them over his hole. The sensation is cold and unfamiliar, making Morty gasp. Rick's fingers stop.

"W-what? Why'd you stop?"

In lieu of an answer, Rick starts to move again, rubbing the lube around and pressing down on the tight ring of muscle with the pad of one finger. Morty jerks; he's never done anything like this with his ass before.

The tip of Rick's finger breaches his hole and Morty whines uncomfortably.

"Jesus Christ, Morty," Rick mumbles.

"Huh?" Morty asks. He can't help that he's panting; he's nervous and uncomfortable.

"Nothing, fuck. Just keep it down? We're still in a public bathroom."

Morty covers his mouth and then nods. Rick pushes his finger in deeper and Morty's thighs tremble. Even if he's trying to see it as being clinical, like a trip to the doctor's office, he's so aware of the digit inside of him, the way it moves so slowly yet so insistently inwards, wiggling inside him. He pulls his hand away from his face.

"Rick, I don't think I can-can do this. I don't think it'll fit."

"It'll fit."

Morty shakes his head. "It's too big."

Rick takes a deep breath and then exhales slowly. "Morty, I really need you to shut up."

Another finger enters him and Morty whimpers. "Rick, oh god."

"Morty. Shut the fuck up." Both fingers withdraw and then thrust back into him, wiggling and slick with lube. Morty shuts his mouth but he can't stop himself from making noises.

When a third finger works its way past his entrance Morty's hand falls away from his mouth, forgotten.

"Rick, _please_."

The fingers withdraw from his body abruptly and Rick yells out, "Fuck! Goddamn it, I'm really trying here!"

Morty flinches. There was genuine anger in Rick's voice. "I'm sorry, Rick I—"

"No, shut up! I'm getting these seeds inside your ass later. I just need to—I can't fucking—"

A hand wraps around his waist, tugging him backwards and increasing the angle of his bend. He hadn't noticed it before but Rick was breathing hard, just as hard as he was. Morty tries to turn around and look at him but Rick grabs the back of his head and forces him to face forward before he can see the look on his grandfather's face, and before his grandfather can see the fear and confusion on his.

"Rick, what are—"

"I can't believe I wasn't going to do anything with you yet, like it fucking matters," Rick mumbles, voice low enough that he might be talking to himself. He feels Rick moving around behind him but when he tries to stand up the arm around him goes tight. "Like you aren't all fucking stretched out, moaning like a slut. What do you expect me to do?! Huh?!"

"What do you—"

Rick grabs hold of his ass, thumb sliding down into the crease as he spreads his cheeks. There's nothing clinical and benign in Rick's touch now, it's harsh and rough.

"Fuck, I don't even need to heal you up afterwards," Rick says. Even though he can't see Rick he knows the man is grinning, he can hear the frightening, rapturous joy in his voice. "I can just blame it on the fucking seeds!"

"Rick, that hurts. What are you—" He freezes at the feeling of something prodding at his entrance, something that wasn't a finger or a seed.

Rick laughs and his blood goes cold. "Fuck me, this is my favorite goddamn part. You're always so surprised at this, it drives me crazy. You don't even think you trust me but you can't see something so fucking obvious. God, Morty. Don't you ever change."

Morty is actively shaking now, and his voice when it comes out is weak. "Grandpa Rick?"

"Not like you _can_ change, fuck. Not if I have anything to say about it."

Morty feels a hard nudge at his hole and then the head of Rick's cock is being pushed inside him.

"Oh!" Morty gasps, hands scrambling along the wall for some semblance of purchase. He winds up bracing himself against the corner of the stall, a hand on two walls. His mind reels and he struggles to breathe.

"Yes, _fuck_!" Rick yells, pushing himself further into his ass. There's an immediate ache at the intrusion and it's unbelievably tight but the overabundance of slick keeps him sliding in. Morty's seen his grandfather naked plenty of times, more times than he'd prefer really, and he knows how big he is. He's never seen Rick hard though and he feels bigger like this, like there's no way he'll be able to fit all of him, and that same frightened panic hits him that he'd felt trying to get the mega seed inside.

He lets out a whine, some weak noise of protest but he doubts Rick can hear it over his own moaning, and how intent he is in pushing himself deeper into Morty's ass. He holds on tight to Morty's wiggling hips until he finally, with a deep groan of satisfaction, bottoms out.

"Shit," Rick says with a laugh. "How have I never done this before?!"

Morty wants to yell, wants to get angry and snap Rick out of whatever the hell has gotten over him but he can't seem to breathe. His chest hurts and he shakes in Rick's grip, knees going weak as Rick starts to thrust into him. He doesn't want to think about what's happening and why Rick's doing it.

"You know what, Morty?" Rick says breathlessly as he draws himself out and then slams back in, drawing a startled gasp from Morty. "I think I'm done being an atheist. I officially believe in a divine maker but-but only in the context of my dick in your ass."

Rick goes still suddenly. It takes a moment for Morty to recognize what's going on. He startles when somebody knocks on the door to the bathroom again. He's pretty sure Rick locked it before they went inside and put up a cleaning notice but whoever’s there just keeps knocking. Morty tries to push himself upright but Rick doesn't let him go anywhere. He picks right back up, gripping Morty's hips tight.

"Fuck off!" Rick yells. "I'm popping my grandson's cherry!"

Morty's face is burning but from the sound of retreating footsteps, Rick's scared the alien off. The fact that they aren't being walked in on is a small consultation.

Morty tries to say something, some kind of disagreement, anything to let Rick know that he doesn't want this, but the second he thinks he's got enough air and his lungs to speak Rick shifts the way he’s thrusting into him and brushes up against something inside him that makes sparks shoot behind his eyes.

"You like that, Morty? You liking your grandpa's dick in your ass?" He sounds like he needs to hear it. "You're such a slut. Listen to you moan."

It isn't until Rick points it out that Morty realizes that he really is moaning. He can't seem to organize his brain into coherent thoughts but he's vocalizing every time Rick hits the right spot inside of him. Morty bites down on his tongue, trying to hold back any noises that he's making.

"Come on, Morty, don't start holding back on me now. You-you think I give a shit if anyone hears you now?"

Morty shakes his head wordlessly, not in response to anything Rick's saying. Between Rick's grunts, the slapping of skin, and the shaking of the stall they were already being so loud. The last thing he needs is to advertise what they're doing even harder.

At least that's what he's thinking before Rick slows down and starts angling his cock inside Morty like he's on a mission. When he finds the spot he's looking for Morty can't physically stop himself from crying out at the feeling, shame filling him as blood fills his cock.

"Fuck, Morty. You sound so cute when you're getting dicked down. I knew you would, baby."

Rick's cock almost brushes up against that spot again and Morty grunts a little in frustration. Before he can think too much about it he moves back against Rick, trying to change the angle of his thrusts until he hits it again and Morty gasps.

"That good?" Rick asks. "You like that?"

Morty shakes his head even as he finds himself doing it again. His body is reacting to the stimulation, his heart pounding and his cock hardening without his permission.

"Stubborn brat," Rick says, picking up his pace. His hand on Morty's hip pulls him in towards his thrusts, forcing him deeper, making Morty feel like he's throwing himself back against Rick.

"Shit, I'm gonna come inside you Morty. Gonna fill your pretty little ass up." He laughs bitterly to himself. "Maybe I'll tell you it's-it's just some secretion from the seed. You're stupid, I know you'll believe me. Won't even question it when you're washing me out of your ass later."

Morty sobs. "I'm g-going to tell my mom," he gasps out, voice weak and breathless.

Rick just laughs again. And then he thrusts into Morty so hard that Morty is forced flat against the wall. He pins Morty there while he fucks him and keeps them like that until he finally finishes.

"I hate you," Morty says in the aftermath.

Rick is still pressed up behind him, keeping him in place. "So what, you want an award?" he asks, voice oddly soft. "I hate me too, Morty. You're not special."

***

"Fuck," Morty says, looking at the red vial. He remembered Rick telling him that the seed would leave a white secretion inside his body. He'd even joked that it would look like jizz. Morty had grimaced but hadn't second guessed Rick. It hadn't occurred to him to second guess it. He doesn’t know how to feel about himself and the way he’d acted beyond being mildly disgusted. He can’t imagine himself in the position of the Morty who’d shoved himself onto Rick’s dick like that.

Having seen more than enough for a lifetime, Morty shoves the vial back into the box and starts pushing it back towards its hiding spot. His eye catches on a label, written a little more neatly than the others, and his own name.

Against his better judgement he picks up the vial. It reads "a PSA for Morty."

"Uh-oh,” Morty says.

***

He hardly has time to recognize the bar on Atbar Prime before he's being pulled aside by Rick's hand on his shoulder, steering him into another room and taking them away from the bustling crowd. Rick doesn't seem particularly drunk but he must be with the way he grips Morty's waist and hoists him up onto the edge of an empty table.

"Uh, Rick, why are you—" he starts to ask. Rick claps a hand over his mouth, tightening it when Morty tries to duck away.

"Shh, sorry Morty, but I'm really not in the mood for the third degree, kay?"

"Mm?" Morty tries to ask. He didn't think they were in danger but there was urgency in Rick's eyes that spoke of nothing good. It was the kind of expression he wore when he'd just won an argument, or was winding up for a particularly nihilistic rant.

With no warning, Rick starts undoing his pants, sliding his hand up under Morty's shirt and then slipping it into the front of his jeans. Shock freezes Morty momentarily but then he's shoving at Rick's chest and trying to back away, unsure what Rick's trying to get out of this but uncomfortable either way. When Rick curls his fingers and cups his dick, Morty grabs the hand on his mouth with both of his own.

"Morty, I'm gonna need you to just lay there and squirm around and be all confused and betrayed while I do my thing. _Oh jeez,_ " Rick says, in an irritating facsimile of his voice, _"Rick what're you gonna do?_ I don't know maybe I'll fuck you. That'd be fun. _What the heck, Rick! You can't rape me, I'm your grandson!_ I can do whatever I want, dumbass! I'm a god!"

Morty is breathing as hard as he can through his nose but he's still going lightheaded with panic, chest heaving and overheated with Rick bearing down on him.

"Shit, sorry, I didn't mean to yell. I'm not angry," Rick says in a soothing voice, the hand that wasn't covering his mouth, petting his hair. "I'm sorry. Don't be scared, Morty. I am still gonna fuck you though. I-I totally meant that part."

He wraps a hand around Morty's shoulder and then flips him over decisively. Morty gasps as his mouth is released.

"Rick?!"

"Nice and easy now."

"This isn't funny, Rick!"

"Of course it isn't." Rick shoves his pants and boxers down so they're hanging around his knees, trapping him in place. "And you're super angry about it and you're gonna fucking– _ugh_ —I don't know, tell your mom or something. Well, jokes on you, kiddo. You aren't gonna remember this happened!"

"What?!"

"Yeah, I can pretty much do anything." Rick covers his mouth again. "Now be a good boy and squeeze your—squeeze your thighs together a little bit."

Morty shakes his head violently.

"Morty, I really don't have the patience to stretch you out so you can either take it up the ass or this can be easy."

Morty is mortified to feel himself crying and the hand around his mouth starts to relax slightly. With a last defiant sniff he lets his thighs be pressed together.

"Thanks, Morty." Rick pets his back over his shirt. "Fuck, listen, I'll make it up to you next time and I'll be all—I'll go easy on you. So just chill the fuck out for now. I promise I'll wipe your memories and it'll be like this never happened, okay buddy? Just let me..."

He flinches at the sound of Rick unzipping his pants, still trying to wiggle out from under him. Rick is draped heavily over his back and he can hear him breathing harshly into his ear. His legs squeeze themselves together tighter at the pressing of what he assumes is Rick's cock at the back of his thighs.

"Fucking god, I don't know how I don't this every single day," Rick says, as though rubbing himself on a teenager beat every ridiculous sexscapade he'd ever had.

A sudden thrust brings the length of him brushing along the underside of Morty's balls and his breath hitches. "I definitely think about it every day. Every time you sass me or disobey me or jack it to _incest porn_ , you nasty little fuck. What the fuck is that, an invitation?"

He groans loudly and Morty hiccups behind his hand.

"Fucking hell, Morty. Clearly I should just make a clone of you to keep my dick warm so I wouldn't have to deal with all your shit." He squeezes one of Morty's thighs way too tightly, like he means to break Morty in half, and he whines. "Who the fuck am I kidding? Nothing'll ever get me off like the real thing."

Rick sounds desperate and hungry, a quiver in his voice and in his hands as he sets up a pace for himself. For the most part Morty doesn't feel much but the hard length of Rick's cock slipping back and forth along the smooth skin off his inner thighs, but it's strange and he wants it to be over so he can go home and talk to his mom.

"I know what you're thinking, Morty, because you always say the same goddamn thing when you're scared: that you'll tell your mom and she won't stand for this. But guess what? I could drag you into the living room and fuck you over the couch and then just erase everyone's minds afterwards. Shit, the only reason I haven't is that I doubt I can maintain an erection around Jerry. What do you think about that, Morty?"

Morty can't help it at this point, furiously wiping at the angry tears running down his face.

"This is gonna keep happening to you, Morty, are you listening to me? Do you realize what I'm saying?"

He doesn't want to accept what Rick's saying but he thinks Rick wants to be acknowledged and nods weakly.

"What? No, I'm not talking to _you_ , Morty." Rick licks the shell of his ear and then, to Morty's surprise, wraps a hand around his cock. It isn't as soft as he'd prefer it to be. "Ha, thank you teenage hormones."

Morty tries to pull the hand on his mouth free, tries to yell for him to stop but Rick just starts stroking him, rough and even like he knows Morty's cock, which, from the insane things he's been saying, he probably does.

"I know you're fucking watching this, Morty," Rick says. Morty makes a confused noise as he squirms in Rick's hand, inadvertently clamping down on the cock between his thighs. "Shh, Morty, I said I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the future Morty who wouldn't mind his fucking business and went digging through the Mind Blowers on his own, the fucking idiot."

Whatever Rick's talking about, Morty is having a hard time following anything at all but the hand on his dick. He's not used to feeling so disgusting while he's hard. Usually that doesn't come until the afterglow fades and he's left clicking out of an incognito window at three in the morning.

"I hope you watch this one, Morty," Rick says, voice straining. "I want you to-to see your grandpa making you come and I want you to remember how fucking good it feels. It doesn't matter if you know or if you don't I'm not letting you stop this. You got that?"

Morty's only response is a muffled groan, frightened and confused and terribly aroused.

"You gonna come? Huh, Morty? Gonna come for your grandpa?"

 _No_ , he thinks furiously, even as he thrusts into Rick's fist. _No, no, no—_

***

"No!" Morty yells, pulling the vial out of the helmet. In his haste the vial hits the floor and shatters.

"Fuck," he whispers, looking at the broken vial, and then, "what the fuck. Oh, fuck."

Morty struggles to get his breathing under control, his grandfather's words ringing around in his skull. It wasn't possible for Rick to know he was watching these Mind Blowers was it? No, not the exact moment he was watching them. He probably just assumed Morty would watch them at some point. And he had.

And he was, what, threatening Morty? Telling him that there was no way he was ever going to stop?

With shaky hands, Morty shoves the rest of the vials back into the box. He'd have to just pretend he hadn't seen anything. No, that wouldn't work. He wasn't very good at lying to Rick. And why should he lie about what he'd seen anyway? So Rick could keep doing what he was doing with impunity?

Morty rubs his head, trying to figure out what to do about everything he'd seen. The logical answer seemed to be to tell his mom everything and let her sort it out. Rick vaguely respected her opinions and she knew how to stand up for herself.

Morty starts to close the box when he sees something taped to the inside of one flap. It's another vial and there are several arrows drawn in marker pointing at it. The handwriting on the vial is different from the rest. It says "Watch Me".

The vial is also blue.

***

"Fuck," Morty says, dropping the last vial back into the box. His head hurts and whether that's a side effect of relearning so many of his memories or the content of the memories he isn't sure.

He doesn't know what to do but he knows he needs to get out of there so he shoves the box back into its compartment. Pressing on one side of the panel causes the entire thing to swing shut again and the panel expands back out into the rest of the wall as though it were never there.

Morty climbs out of Rick's underground lab with his head so heavy with all the new memories he's trying to process that he doesn't even notice that Rick is sitting at his bench until Rick says, "Morty, pass me my blowtorch."

Morty nearly jumps out of his skin at the sight of Rick working, back turned to him and hand outstretched expectantly. He wants to refuse to get Rick his blowtorch but he can't think of what he'd say or how Rick would react. So he grabs Rick's blowtorch and drops it into his hand.

He looks over at the door to the garage and then back at Rick. He steps slowly over to the door, eyes firmly on the back of Rick's head.

Rick sighs and turns off the blowtorch. "Okay, Morty," he says, sounding tired of Morty already. "What'd you do?"

"Do?' Morty asks, voice hoarse. He clears his throat. "I-I-I didn't do anything."

"Alright, then which horrible dark secret of mine did you uncover?" He spins around in his chair, dropping whatever device he's working on. "Just spit it out."

"Uh, none of them?"

"Yeah, I'm sure that's the case." He pulls his flask from his lab coat and takes a very long swing from it. "Okay, so obviously Summer showed you some Mind Blowers, then you got into my R-rated stash, and now you're freaking out because you don't know how to act around a guy who frequently fucks you then wipes your memory. That about cover it?"

"Uh," Morty says looking downwards, feeling inexplicably guilty at having been caught going through his grandfather's stuff. He resists the urge to apologize. "Yeah. I guess."

"Great. I hope you watched them in an order that made narrative sense and was appropriately titillating to the audience."

Morty's mouth falls open. Whatever he was expecting it sure wasn't the utter nothing that he gets from Rick. No guilt, no fear, no attempt at an apology. "Is that all you've got to say?!"

"Well, if you started off with the memory of us in the pool of goop on Sigma Iotia II then you probably got a pretty accelerated version of events without any of that slow burn that the kids are into these days."

"Rick!" Morty shouts. "You-you've been—you ..."

Rick stares at him flatly, looking extremely unimpressed. "What have I been doing, Morty? Sparing you nightmares and keeping you from getting yourself worked up?"

"Worked up?! Why wouldn't I get worked up about it?!"

"Because your options are either get fucked by me whenever I feel like it, agonize all the time, and ruin our partnership, or get fucked whenever I feel like it and keep everything else completely normal. Which sounds better?"

"Um, neither?!"

"Obviously that's not true." Rick gets up finally and Morty backs away until he feels the garage door at his back. Rick rolls his eyes. "O-okay, so what's your plan now, smartass? Gonna tell your mom?"

"Hell yeah I'm going to tell my mom!" Morty yells.

"Go right ahead." Rick sits back down and starts drinking from his flask again.

"I'm-I'm going to!"

"Fine by me."

Morty turns enough to open the door, keeping his eyes on Rick the entire time. "You can't just make me forget this time!"

"I don't plan to," Rick says calmly. He makes a shooing gesturing at Morty. "Now go rat on me to your mom."

"What?" Beth says, lowering her wine glass. "How long has this been going on?"

"I-I don't know," Morty says, rubbing his arm. "Years I think. I didn't watch all the memories but—"

"That doesn't sound like something he would do. Hell, half the time I feel like he doesn't even like you, much less want to...well..."

"Jeez, Mom, I know."

Beth looks down at her glass longingly but doesn't drink any more of it. "Alright, sweetie. Just...give me a minute. I'll go talk to him."

"I don't think you should do that. Rick seemed really okay with me telling you. I think he-he might be up to something."

"Don't worry, I've got this." She pulls out a notepad from a nearby drawer and starts writing something down. "Here, I'm writing a note to myself so even if he tries to Mind Blowers me, I'll know what's going on." She tears off the top page, folds it up, and puts it into her pocket. Under her breath she says, "not that I think he'll do that to _me_."

With that she squeezes Morty on the shoulder and heads down to the garage, leaving Morty to stand around awkwardly in the kitchen, wondering what the hell will happen.

Morty paces around the kitchen for five minutes, waiting for the sound of yelling or Rick opening the garage door and flying off in his ship. Neither happens. He can vaguely hear his mom and Rick talking, the occasional belch from Rick and the occasional laugh from Beth, and then Beth returns to the kitchen in a noticeably better mood. She stops smiling when she sees Morty's stricken expression.

"Look, Morty," she starts.

"He-he got to you, didn't he?"

"Morty, come here," she says, holding out an arm. Morty doesn't move and Beth lowers it again with a sigh. "I know he can be a real bastard, is generally a huge bastard, and maybe he doesn't respect your bodily autonomy, but that's no reason to go throwing around serious accusations like that."

"Accusations?!"

"I'm sure it's no fun hiding things up your butt for him or being bet during games of space poker but if you don't want to be his sidekick anymore you should talk this through with him rather than—"

"I-I-I can't talk to him about this! He'd just wipe my mind and pretend he never—"

"Rather than trying to tear apart what's left of this family," Beth snaps, speaking over him. Morty flinches at her tone and Beth relaxes again, tone going softer. "Look, I told your grandpa to take it a little easier on you and he said he would. In the meantime, I clearly need to have a talk with your health teacher about how they're teaching you guys the difference between a good touch and a bad touch. Okay, sweetie?"

She gives Morty a pat on the head, grabs her wine glass, and then leaves.

The next morning, Rick doesn't come to breakfast.

They can clearly hear him banging around in the garage, working on something, but his stack of pancakes stay untouched in the empty spot besides Morty. Morty's glad for it: he doesn't know if he'll be able to look Rick in the eyes again for a while after everything he's seen, but the silence around the table is unusually thick and uncomfortable. With Rick around, even if his parents weren't together, the table still wouldn't be quiet.

About halfway through breakfast Beth gets up, takes her orange juice into the kitchen, comes back to the table and takes a large gulp of it. Summer raises an eyebrow at him. They can both smell vodka.

Around noon Rick seems to finish whatever the hell he's working on and Morty hears the sound of his ship leaving. With nothing better to do Morty goes to his room and jerks off and then comes downstairs to watch interdimensional cable with Summer.

"You and Rick have a fight?" Summer asks.

"I guess," Morty says, unsure how else to characterize it.

She doesn't ask any follow up questions.

In the middle of the Ball Fondlers marathon Summer announces that she's going to go hang out with her friends. Since their mom is at work that leaves Morty with the house to himself.

He switches over to the interdimensional porn channel that he'd found purely by accident a couple weeks earlier and manages to jerk off while watching three naked multi-legged orange creatures having what might be sex. When a phone number pops up on the bottom of the screen he realizes that it's actually just a forty minute commercial for foot cream and decides he won't be jerking off to interdimensional cable again.

For lack of anything else to do he eats a bunch of snacks and then grabs his laptop to jerk off to human porn. By two in the afternoon he's already bored enough to consider doing his homework. He keeps thinking about what Rick said, about his personality being nothing but jerking off and being his grandson, and has no idea how to feel.

Things go on this way for a week.

He doesn't see Rick at all. Sometimes he can hear him working on stuff in the garage but he doesn't show up for meals or wake Morty up at night to drag him on an adventure. Morty still wakes up in the middle of the night anyway every time there's a noise in the house. He's too used to keeping to Rick's schedule and his body won't let him fall into a deeper sleep.

On Saturday, when Rick still isn't there for breakfast, Beth throws down her fork and grabs Morty by the wrist, dragging him out of the dining room.

"Um! Mom?"

"I'm sick of this, Morty," Beth says, grip going tight. "You are going to apologize to your grandfather for misconstruing his affection and his, admittedly, impolite policy of using you for experiments and your ass as a suitcase."

Morty yanks himself out of Beth's grip. "You-you never wanted to believe me at all, did you?! You were always going to be on Rick's side no matter what he said!"

"Of course I was going to believe him, over you!' Beth says. "Morty, sweetie, no offense but you've always been a little slow and you've always been sensitive—"

"That doesn't mean I'm wrong about this!" Morty's eyes begin to sting.

"You believed your father about Santa until you were ten years old so forgive me if it sounds like you've been watching too much Dateline and gotten a ridiculous idea into your head." She attempts to grab Morty again but Morty rears back, out of her range. Her expression goes cold. "Morty."

"No! I'm not going to apologize to Rick!"

"Can't you at least admit it's possible he only erased your memories because he knew you'd overreact?"

"No, Mom, he admitted to it! He said he'd been doing it and was going to keep doing it!"

"Morty, do you remember the time you got yourself convinced that your teacher was from the moon? And then you got him fired because your principle thought he was a pedophile and he killed himself?"

"I...what?"

"No, I guess you wouldn't," Beth says, irritation growing. "Because Rick was nice enough to erase that memory from your head so you wouldn't have to deal with your massive fuck up."

"That's..." Morty shakes his head. "Th-that's different. I know what Rick's been doing! I saw it! He's been molesting—“

Morty's words fall short as Beth slaps him in the face.

"You have _no_ idea how lucky you are," Beth says, her entire body shaking. Her hands are clenched at her sides like she needs to actively stop herself from hitting him again. "I don't even know what he sees in you but for some reason you're Rick's favorite. He could've picked someone with half a brain who wouldn't warp every innocent gesture or unlucky adventure into some kind of personal attack but no, he picked you. God, do you have any idea what I'd give to be in your place?!"

Morty just stares at his mother open mouthed, feeling smaller than he ever remembers feeling with Rick.

Beth shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she opens them she's smiling slightly and places both of her hands on Morty's shoulders. "So. When you see your grandpa you're going to say...?

"I'm sorry, Rick," Morty says, staring down at the floor of the garage. Beth gives his shoulder an unfriendly squeeze from where she's standing behind him and he continues, "s-sorry about misunderstanding and-and getting all defensive over nothing."

Rick lowers his flask with a shrug. Outwardly at least he doesn't look smug. "Nah, don't worry about it. I-I-I figured you just needed a little Morty Time."

"Yeah," Morty mumbles bitterly. "Thanks a lot for that."

"There!" Beth says with excessive cheer. "You boys clearly just needed to talk things out." She nudges him in Rick's direction. "I don't suppose you have any adventures you'll need Morty for?"

"Actually I have been holding off on a couple good ones." Rick rubs his chin. "I could definitely use a hand if Morty is up for it."

"He is. Obviously." She nudges him a little harder and Morty stumbles. Rick comes around and throws an arm over Morty's shoulder, pulling him close. Morty shudders.

"Glad to hear it." He ruffles Morty's hair with one hand and then shoots a portal into the far wall with the other. "Off we go then! Oh, and sweetie?"

Beth perks up. "Yeah. Dad?"

Rick winks. "Thanks for playing peacemaker."

Beth beams. "Of course! Anytime."

Rick pushes him through the portal and then follows in after him.

And soon as Morty finds his feet he puts some distance between himself and Rick, not even bothering to look around whatever planet they've landed on. Rick practically has a swing in his step as he exits the portal.

"So, Morty. You have a fun week?"

Morty flips him off and keeps walking away for lack of anything else to do. All he knows is that he'd feel better if he was further away from Rick, even if he also knows that he can't really go anywhere.

With an exasperated noise, Rick fires his portal gun. The portal opens up right in front of him but isn't able to stop himself misstep. When he regains his barring he realizes he's standing right next to Rick again.

"What the—" Morty says. He takes off again, only to find himself portaled back to Rick a second time. "Hey!"

Rick grabs him by the elbow when he tries to run off again. "Yeah, I'm real morally objectionable today."

"No, you're not obje-objectionable!" Morty struggles in Rick's hold in a vain effort to free himself. The strength in Rick's grip reminds him of the way he'd fought in the memories he'd watched, how little his struggling had done. "You're a manipulative bastard and a-a-a rapist!"

"Kind of, yeah," Rick says dispassionately. "And I bet you were much happier when you only thought I was a manipulative bastard."

"That's because I didn't know better!"

"Duh, Morty! Not knowing better is the shit!" His grip is tight enough that Morty knows it'll leave bruises. "There's literally fucking nothing better than being too stupid to know anything’s wrong! Why do you think I'm such a miserable old fuck?!"

Morty shrugs. "I kinda thought that was just your personality."

"I-I-It's a mixture, Morty, but forget about that for a second. I'm willing to bet you had a pretty shit week, huh? All you did was jerk off, watch T.V, and go to school. Am I right?"

Morty tries to think of some way to disagree with him but nothing comes to mind. Not a single thing he did that week stands out in his head. He hardly talked to anyone but his family, he didn't even do better on a math test he took. He always assumed he'd enjoy having breaks from Rick but he never did.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Rick says. "You were bored out of your mind and paranoid that I was gonna make the moves on you. So I'm gonna ask you again: would you rather live like this for the rest of your shitty life or do you want to erase your memories so everything can go back to normal?"

Tears come to Morty's eyes but he still shakes his head.

"No? Okay then how about a little taste of what you're in for?" And then he surprises Morty by pulling the memory helmet from his lab coat and securing it to Morty's head. Morty stands transfixed as Rick fumbles a red vial out of his pocket. "Here, try this on for size."

***

He's on his knees in Rick's ship and he's choking, mouth full around Rick's cock while Rick tries to push him down further with a hand on his head. Morty is nauseous and dizzy, probably close to throwing up but Rick doesn't let go, just keeps holding him down and petting his head in a way that seems like it's trying to be soothing.

"Shh, Morty, it's okay buddy, you're doing so fucking good, don't be upset, grampa’s gonna make it like this never happened as soon as he's done. Everything will be back to normal so don't cry, okay?"

Morty can't help crying though and that's making it harder for him to breathe. Rick either doesn't notice or doesn't care. He holds Morty's head in both of his hands and thrusts up into his mouth.

"Fuck, Morty. Just-just gimme a second, I'm not gonna drag this out. Not like I fucking _can_ , god I love your mouth—“

***

Rick pulls the vial out and Morty stumbles away, reeling. He's gasping mostly from shock he realizes, not because of Rick trying to slam his way into his throat.

"What the fuck?!" Morty shouts.

"Was that a good one?" Rick scoffs, pulling out another red vial. "Never mind, they're all good ones. Wanna try another?"

"No!" Morty pulls off the helmet and throws it aside.

"So you don't want to remember everything that happened? You-you want to go on adventures, and not have nightmares about me, and you want your mom not to hate you?"

Morty sniffs angrily. "Yeah..."

"Attaboy, Morty," Rick says in a comforting voice. "I-I-It'll be like it never happened. I'll do the same to your mom too so she won't be angry at you anymore. Doesn't that sound good, Morty?"

Morty nods, voice caught in his throat. The memories didn't entirely feel like they were of him in the first place. Even if he recognized himself in all of them it felt more like watching a terrible movie starring him than reintegrating a memory.

"Yeah, Rick," he says weakly. "That sounds good."

The memory ends a little while after that.

***

Morty pulls the blue vial out of the helmet and looks down at it. He knows now that it's his handwriting on the tape, his hastily scrawled out "Watch Me" stuck to the side of it. Rick had prompted him to write it himself, for when he inevitably ran into these Mind Blowers.

Morty puts the box away numbly and leaves Rick's underground lab. When he returns to the house Rick is on the couch in the living room, sipping on a beer as he watches T.V.

"It's a miracle you don't chafe with how often you do that," Rick says. He scoots over on the couch to make room for him and Morty takes his seat right beside him. There's something on T.V. that looks like a version of The Price is Right but all the contestants are expensive items and they're trying to guess the prices of people.

"I wasn't jerking off, Rick," Morty says quietly.

Rick's eyes dart over to him, expression unreadable. He hums and goes back to watching T.V. "R-rated Mind Blowers?" he asks casually, reaching into his lab coat.

"Yeah..."

"You watch em' all?"

"The important ones."

"I gotchu." He adjusts the setting on his mind eraser. "Will an hour do?"

"Probably."

"Good." He burps, not looking away from the T.V. "They always-always overbid on the white chicks. Racist food processor."

"Um, Rick?" he asks, as Rick points the memory eraser at him. Rick lowers it slightly, brow raised like he expects Morty to object to having his memory wiped, but Morty only asks, "h-have you ever thought of just not uh...doing it?"

Rick's brow climbs higher. "Sure, Morty. I think about doing and not doing lots of shit. So what? Any other stupid questions?"

Morty kind of wants to dwell on that one a little more but instead he asks, "Um, if this isn't our original universe are these my memories? Like, do they technically belong to whatever Morty actually lived in this universe?"

Rick sighs heavily. "What, _now_ you start thinking about the logistics of being an interdimensional refugee?! Most of them are, the old ones are close enough to what happened to us. Guess what, Morty? Ricks are all a similar kind of fucked up! Now you get one more stupid question then I'm wiping your brain."

Morty swallows. "Why'd my shoe catch fire earlier?"

"Huh? I don't know, did you step in that puddle of Gear Head piss in the parking lot at Blips and Chitz? Even though I said definitely don't step in it because their piss is highly flammable?"

"I might-might not have tried that hard to step around it."

"Then that's why. Okay, brain zappy time. Say goodbye to like, 5% of your PTSD."

"Okay," Morty says quietly. He shuts his eyes, thinking about how good it'll feel to watch interdimensional cable with his grandfather once he no longer remembers anything he's seen. "Thanks."

Everything is silent for a moment and then Rick is gently petting his head. Morty doesn't want to know what kind of expression he's making as he says, "You're welcome, Morty," in a stiff voice.

And then Morty, mercifully, forgets.

***

**Author's Note:**

> i still can't believe i wrote this but i hope you guys enjoyed it! check out my [twitter](http://twitter.com/statuscrows) if you want to


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